Pageant Question 22: If you won the lottery for ten million dollars, what would you do with it?

Niagara Falls, New York is a natural wonder surrounded by a slum.  The city used to be a jewel brilliant enough to match the dramatic setting, but no longer.  After the closing of many companies and selfish mismanaging by mobsters, people moved out.  Homes and buildings and general infrastructure aged without repair.  Out of town businessmen own properties, but hold them empty and crumbling, possibly for tax deductions, but also because they're asking ridiculous amounts of money for them.  The City of Niagara Falls has been left to rot.  Most people remaining, either living in the city or running it, are struggling.  City managers recently called for a meeting, asking for ways to bring Niagara Falls back from the brink of poverty and despair.  I firmly believe the answer lies in two areas: helping those who are living in the city to stabilize their homes, and getting faster turnover of empty properties into new owners' hands.

Tops and bottoms: the two most important parts of any building.  Neglect the roof, and you ruin the structure.  Neglect the foundation, and you ruin the structure.  These are also the two most expensive parts of a house to repair.  In a city like Niagara Falls, most of the housing is well past the point where they have needed new roofs, repaired gutters, stabilized foundations and improved drainage.  Most of the homeowners cannot afford such repairs and, therefore, let the homes deteriorate past repair.  My proposal would start a "Tops and Bottoms" homeowner grant to make these repairs before more properties are destroyed.  Another path to property destruction is when a property is in the hands of the city itself.

The City of Niagara Falls allows properties under its ownership to crumble.  Their negligence has allowed thieves to vandalize properties and to steal basic house systems, making the homes unaffordable.  Their negligence has allowed roof and foundation problems to slide for years making demolition the only option for many properties.  I believe that unfocused solutions and lack of foresight on the part of the city government has exacerbated Niagara Falls' problems.

Pageant Question 14: If you could be someone else, who would you be, and why?

I was twenty-seven years old when I realized how close thirty was.  I had told myself since I turned twenty that thirty was my new mile marker.  It had been twenty, but the dreams of my teen years were pretty lame and clearly weren't working out.  I had wanted to be a famous drummer, but I never set aside enough time to practice on the secondhand Ludwig set in my room.  It wasn't all my fault; I couldn't play when anyone was home, but many opportunities I did have I lost to video games.  If I had been more determined to achieve my dream rather than simply being attached to the idea of it, I would have found a way.  My other teen dream was to get laid by Megan Huggs, and that didn't work out, either.

At twenty-seven, I had my own apartment, and I still had my drum set, though it was filthy with dust.  I had nearly gotten an associate's degree in Criminal Justice, but it turned out that while I enjoyed watching television crime shows, I despised learning about actually doing it.  I worked as "Collections and Recovery Specialist" for a bank, which means I called people on the phone asking for money they owed.  It was sucking the life right out of me.  I wasn't even good at it because on a great many calls, despite management's training intervention, I would still just apologize profusely and hang up on them.  I was not motivated.  I was not a team player.  I did not have a positive and friendly attitude.  I was not a self-starter.  I was not even detail-oriented.

One morning, when my alarm went off as six for my bleary-eyed shower and cereal breakfast, I turned it off.  Not snooze.  Off.  I didn't go back to sleep, either.  What I did was ponder that in three years, I would be thirty.  I also pondered that if I didn't formulate a new plan for my life, I would find myself at thirty-seven looking at forty.  Then forty-seven looking at fifty.  Then... well, what?  Would I be looking back on my life instead of forward and wondering what I ever did?  I pondered in bed for an hour as the sun rose without any answer then I must have fallen back to sleep because I dreamed.

First I dreamed I was a woman.  Now get this straight: I'm not transsexual and I don't cross-dress.  It was just a dream.  I had just come home from shopping and I was taking off my heels and my husband and kids came to greet me.  The house was spectacular, and I knew we had a maid.  I was looking forward to our upcoming vacation to the Virgin Islands and the new bikini I bought.  This dream was hyper-realistic, unlike my normal, bleary dreams, and it switched me smoothly into someone else.  A man this time, with a beard, which I have never had because my facial hair is the sad, patchy hair of a seventeen year old.  I was sitting on the porch of my cabin smoking a pipe and all was well with the world.  I had a feeling of contentment I had never had in real life.  My dream switched me one last time into a kid.  I'm not sure if I was a boy or a girl, but, man, I had talent.  I played piano and I was giving a concert in what I knew was Carnegie Hall, though I'm sure it didn't look quite like the real thing.  When I finally woke it was nine and with utmost certainty I knew what my dream meant.  It was a dramatic representation of change.  I needed to become someone else to be happy.

Pageant Question 8: What one thing do you want people to remember about you at the end of your life?

Hadal was the eldest member of the tribal community, and he was dying.  He knew he was dying; he know a lot of things, though he didn't often have the words for them.  Hadal had kept his tribe safe through the years by his daily observations of the winds and sky, by his implementation of a scout system, and by his ability to find the underlying causes behind events.  Most in his tribe thought Hadal was in communication with the gods, and that he was given special knowledge, but he knew that anyone could do what he did, if only they would take a moment to think.

At this moment, Hadal was sitting in one of his favorite places along an overlook on the clifftop.  There was a tree and a stone and he leaned back in the angle they made and thought.  Hadal thought further forward than he had ever thought before, and he imagined the generations of decedents of his people.  He imagined what they would do based on what they would need when more children were born, and more elderly lived longer, as Hadal had lived longer than his parents, who had lived longer than their parents.  The elder imagined a future that he could not even name, and he saw the wind blowing the dust.  He saw the clifftop where he sat worn by the wind.  He saw the river that gave them life eating the world.  He saw the clouds gather and release, relentlessly through births and deaths.  He saw the world washed and his people taken.

He let these images wash over him, like the warm wind was at that moment, and he sat until the next thought came as it always did.  It was a question: what would remain?

228

A warm evening wind rustled the tall grasses of the empty lots in the city.  The streets on the East Side were as quiet as the country, crickets chirping to herald the dark.  The crumbling sidewalks were absorbed into the scrubby weeds long ago as had any foundation and driveway remnants.  Only one in twenty houses still stood for blocks in any direction.  The city had become the country by neglect.

A few homesteaders had been able to take advantage of the urban blight.  Initially mocked by friends and family, they now owned huge swaths of land and often very nice houses.  Once such homesteader had a quirky, rather than "green", streak, and bought up three separate houses, two next door and one on the street behind, as well as acres of empty lots.

224

As Claudia was barfing into her handbag, she reflected on her life and was rather disappointed.  Women in their late 30s should not be barfing without the influence of the stomach flu or undercooked meat, yet here she was, shoulders hunched over her cheap, gold purse, trying not to barf so loudly that the cabbie would kick her out.

Pulling up to her apartment building, Claudia handed the cab driver a twenty with two fingers.  The ride only cost ten, but since all her money smelled like vomit, she thought he could use the tip.  Claudia fumbled with the door handle and slumped halfway out, knock-kneed in her short skirt and heels.

167

Many people, not just men, mind you, believe that PMS simply makes a woman bloated, bitchy and desirous of chocolate.  That is only partially true.  The symptoms suffered by premenstrual women, or by women suffering from any hormonal fluctuations, are often more subtle and much more psychologically harmful than indulging in extra chocolate.  The following example may help to demonstrate the transformation due to PMS.

Dreams become weird.  They are colorful and frightening.  Demons lurk in basements and the feeling of loss and personal error leading to loss lingers upon awakening.  Helping to magnify the dream state is poor sleep.  A sufferer finds herself weary during the day, but unable to fall asleep.  She may also wake frequently and have difficulty falling back to sleep.  Dreams haunt until morning.

The sufferer will find herself marked by zits and bruises.  Often, it is a sudden zit that will first alert her that something is awry.  The bruises come from carelessness with one's body.  The corner of a bookshelf will be closer than is realized, bruising an elbow.  She will take a corner too closely and bruise a hip.  She will crack a shin, a knee, her head.  She will close her finger in a drawer.  However it happens, there will be bruises.

These are, perhaps, first noticeable symptoms, and they may be understood by the woman and then used to acknowledge that the more harmful symptoms she has already been experiencing (unnoticed and unacknowledged) are due to hormones and not due to any suddenly revealed Truth about the world.  It will seem that Truths (with a capital T) have been revealed.  Motives behind others' actions will suddenly be realized.  Tone of voice will indicate volumes of hidden feelings.  Words unsaid will speak to the heart and be understood when once there was just a nice, quiet moment.  The world will show itself as it truly is.  HOWEVER: this is a lie.  It is a lie told by hormones that seems just like a revelation.  You must look back to the pimples, the bruises, the dreams, to remind yourself that these heart-wrenching revelations are untrue.

151

You have taken the first step.  By reading this book, you have acknowledged that not only are you poor, but that you no longer wish to remain poor.  Let this book be your inspiration, your first step up and out of poverty.  Hopefully, you didn't pay too much for it.

In this book you will find:

• Inspirational stories from regular people who prove that you can get out of poverty.
• Thrifty tips and tricks to help you gather wealth.
• Tips and tricks to make you appear (and feel!) richer than you currently are.
• Motivational quotes and facts.
• NEW!  Special added chapter for those who have never been poor, designed to help them realize that being poor is not a character defect.

Your journey from poverty begins now.  Good luck!

140

The story of Adam and Eve in Genesis is not a true story of how life on Earth began, but rather a story for children that teaches them how they grow and learn. Those who take the Bible for truth will most certainly have their own thoughts (and they will be sure to share them on crumpled paper rubber banded onto to rocks and flung through my picture window,) but it is nonetheless obvious for anyone who chooses to truly look.

"Eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" is what we all eventually must do, though it is a bitter fruit, indeed. Recall the first time you realized that some aspect of your life was not as it at first seemed. Recall the horror you felt. Recall the tilting of your world beneath your feet. See the thick, black line drawn between "before" and "after" this realization. Think of your wish never to have had that realization. Witness your own futile attempts to forget. See every day the new truth you wish you never learned.

Congratulations. You have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

I ate of the Tree when a man in a Winnebago cut me off when I was only sixteen and flipped me the finger. I realized, with a shock and a quick application of brakes, that not all adults are kind.

133

It was Merelyn's goal to wake every morning with a positive thought, but as he unglued his right eye's lids with sheer force of will on this, the first morning after his New Year's goal-setting, he could only think how the cat's paws must have tracked in litter to his duvet, and how the smell of cat poop would ruin his taste for breakfast.

87

"What the hell am I suppose to do?"

Mrs. Kirby continued to shuffle paperwork. She sucked on her invisible braces and looked everywhere except at her client.

"I need to see a doctor. I ain't got enough money to see a doctor but you telling me I got too much money, somehow. How? How is that?"

Mrs. Kirby opened her mouth and closed it again.

"I don't even have nothing for them to take when I can't pay. My car? How am I suppose to get to work, then?"

Another service worker peeked over the cubicle divider and looked worried.

"You don't write the rules, is that what you wanna say? You just follow the rules? Is that it?"

Mrs. Kirby tipped her chin up.

"I see. You don't care because you got your nice job with benefits. Or you did care but now you don't because you think I'm mad, that all your "clients" are mad, at you. Is that it? I'm not mad at you excep' for the fact that you don't do nothing to help change the system. You don't ask questions. You don't even answer my questions!"

The security guard wandered in from the hallway and waited at the door.

"Mrs. Kirby, you should quit your job to-day. It has taken your soul. You ain't helping nobody, not even your own self. You are just like all these forms you make all us fill out and send back again and again when there's parts we missed. You a government form. Nothin' but, and just as soulless. Quit, Mrs. Kirby. Maybe I see you around when you found your soul again. Or maybe I'll be dead."